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By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter

US Secretary of State John Kerry hinted that the Barack Obama administration in its second term may be abandoning the “strategic patience” approach to North Korea from its first term. The change suggests that Washington may be playing a more active role in North Korea issues going ahead.

Kerry’s reworking of his North Korea policy appears to have come in the wake of visits to South Korea, China, and Japan between Apr. 12 and 14. When questioned about the policy in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Apr. 17, he dubbed the current approach one of “strategic impatience.” He also expressed confidence that diplomatic measures may have some effect on policy - a stark contrast with the hands-off approach of the Obama administration’s previous foreign affairs and security team, which suffered from “fatigue” over negotiations with Pyongyang.

The “strategic patience” approach adopted by Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was closer to a policy of neglecting the North Korea issue. The idea was to ignore the country’s provocations and wait for it to change, based on the understanding that any offer of dialogue would be “rewarding bad behavior.” Kerry’s comments about “strategic impatience” appear to be an attempt to distinguish himself from Clinton, who failed to resolve the nuclear issue.

China is key to this new conception. At the hearing, Kerry said that the US “doesn’t have direct influence over North Korea other than military threats,” in contrast with China, which he said has a “relationship” with North Korea.

His idea involved having China use its leverage to elicit changes from Pyongyang.

“I think it’s fair to say that without China, North Korea would collapse,” he said.

Kerry also predicted that China would cooperate, as it stands to suffer from increased instability on the Korean Peninsula.

Kerry sees China as capable of mediating between Pyongyang and Washington. Along these lines, he made an interesting comment during an Apr. 14 meeting with reporters accompanying him on his Northeast Asian tour. Reuters reported him as saying, “If the Chinese came to us and said, ‘Look, here’s what we’ve got cooking and so forth,’ I’m not going to tell you that I’m shutting the door today to something that’s logical and that might have a chance of success.” This could be a sign that if China sends an envoy to Pyongyang and comes up with a plan, Washington would be willing to actively consider it.

Around the same time, China made a similar statement in favor of dialogue. China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, at an Apr. 18 briefing, “We believe that dialogue and consultation is the only correct way to resolve matters”.

“The most pressing task is to step up diplomatic efforts and return as soon as possible to the correct path of dialogue and consultation,” she said.

The US appears likely to pursue diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang after its military exercises with South Korea end later this month and Obama meets with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on May 7.

On Apr. 16, Obama predicted that North Korea “will probably make more provocative moves over the next several weeks.”

“But our hope is that we can contain it and that we can move into a different phase,” he went on to say.

But with both Obama and Kerry insisting on changes in Pyongyang’s approach to negotiations, actual talks could be a long way off. Kerry said on Apr. 17 that the US was “not going to reward them and come to the table and get into some food deal without some pretty ironclad concept of how we’re going forward on the denuclearization.”

His comments reflect a widespread resistance within the US to anything that might be construed as “rewarding” North Korea, regardless of whoever was at fault for breaking agreements between Pyongyang and the US in the past.

“Mr. Kerry is emphasizing dialogue, but given the mood among US politicians, it will take some time to change the policy approach,” said a South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]